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Deree Event
Jul
13
LE From Improvisation to Emergent Form - Level 5
DA 3015
LE From Improvisation to Emergent Form - Level 5
- UK Credits: 15
- US Credits: 3/0/3
Catalog Description
Improvisation from an interdisciplinary perspective. Introduction to improvisation as a tool for collaborative cross-arts practice. Approaches to improvisation with reference to key practitioners (e.g. Cage, Fluxus, Klein, Judson Church, Gibson word-pieces). Students work toward the creation of short performance scores and presentations. Improvisation in non-theatre contexts.
Rationale
The course draws necessary awareness to historical changes within the concept of improvisation now used across disciplines and includes applications of improvisation to socio-cultural contexts other than performance. The course provides significant knowledge and skills in a growing area of professional practice.
Learning Outcomes
As a result of taking this course, the student should be able to:
- Develop awareness of ‘the body politics’ in improvisation as subject, tool and material across arts practices.
- Develop perceptive skills to respond to a fluid environment, in order to sustain improvisational systems.
- Experiment with contemporary forms of collaborative work, in particular the concept of ‘community’, within improvisational practice.
- Demonstrate an understanding of how improvisation supports creative processes including the use of graphic scores.
- Analyze their work within current perspectives on improvisational practice beyond performance contexts.
- Discuss identity, inclusion and freedom within the context of improvisational practice.
In congruence with the teaching and learning strategy of the college, the following tools are used:
- Tutor led workshops attending to both individual and group instruction.
- Preparing studies for feedback and discussion.
- Individual portfolio documenting individual research throughout the course.
- Use of a Blackboard site, where instructors post lecture notes, assignment instructions, announcements, and other resources.
- Office hours: students are encouraged to make full use of the office hours of their instructor, where they can be consulted as to their research paper, assignments, or any other element of the module.
Summative:
Midterm presentation of draft performance score | 35% |
Final practical presentation: final score in performance | 45% |
Portfolio (Research): archive and documentation of the student’s (individual) research process, including reflection on formative ideas and sources | 20% |
Formative:
| In class workshops and discussions | 0 |
The formative “workshops and discussions” aims to prepare students for the examination.
The “Draft performance score” tests Learning Outcomes 1, 2, 3,
The “Presentation of final score in performance” tests Learning Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 6
The Individual Portfolio tests learning Outcomes: 4, 5, 6
REQUIRED MATERIAL:
Selected chapters from:
Cooper-Albright, A. (2013). Engaging Bodies: The Politics and Poetics of Corporeality, Wesleyan University Press.
Goldman, D. (2010) I Want to Be Ready: Improvised Dance as a Practice of Freedom. Ann-Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Peters, G. 2009. The Philosophy of Improvisation. Chicago, Chicago University Press.
FURTHER READING:
Cooper Albright, and D. Gere eds. 2003 Taken by Surprise: a Dance Improvisation Reader. Hanover, N.H. Wesleyan University Press.
Gibson, J.J. 1983 (reprint). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Greenwood Press.
Manning, E. 2009. Relationscapes: Movement, Art, Philosophy (Technologies of Lived Abstraction). MIT Press.
Cage-Cunningham- A Film by Elliot Caplan, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, Jaspers John, Viola Farber DVD 2007.
Keith Jarrett – The Art of Improvisation, DVD Euroarts, 2005.
Seven Easy Pieces, Marina Abramovich, DVD 2010.
All work in proper written and verbal English, use of proper terminology.
All work in proper written and verbal English, use of proper terminology.
www.ubu.com (web archive on contemporary arts)
- Body awareness, the senses as a creative mechanism.
- Democratization of the body and the performance space.
- The body / instrument interplay.
- Strategies for generating material: understanding the nature of ‘tasks’.
- Listening, seeing, touching as key elements in group interaction towards performance.
- Improvisational scores.
- Rule-based improvisation.
- Case studies on improvisational practice as seen through the lens of philosophy, social sciences and the humanities.
- Improvisation as a practice of ‘freedom’.
- Improvisation and notions of community.
